www.scotcat.com

Your internet guide to
all things catfish

Breeding Corydoras nattereri

reeding Corydoras nattereri has
taken me quite sometime to achieve. During October 1995 while
on one of our club outings to The British Aquarist Festival in
Manchester we visited BAS Aquatics in Bolton where I purchased
my five Corydoras nattereri.

Corydoras nattereri

Description:
Light grey to gold body with blue-green stripe down side. Length
5-6 cm.Maintenance: This species prefers water
to be colder than is normal for Corydoras and I would recommend
72F/22C. Initially I housed them in an 18x12x12 tank with a
sand substrate and Java Fern plants. Filtration:Air driven box filter
in one corner and sponge filter in the opposite corner.

Feeding:Tetra
Prima, quality flake, tablets and frozen bloodworm. Normally
I don’t use live food with the exception of newly hatched
brine shrimp for fry. I am currently experimenting with
Grindal Worm cultures.

Breeding:After
quite sometime trying the usual tricks with cory’s to
get them to spawn i.e. large water changes using cold water
which drops the temperature about 6 degrees, nothing was happening.
I more or less gave up on them. April’97 eighteen
months after their arrival I decided to use the tank they were
in for something new and moved the C. nattereri to a
27-gallon tank (39"x15"x12"). Filtration being external canister
plus a large double sponge filter.
No substrate was used but included a large piece of Java Moss
which covered half of the tank. I then left them to with no
further disturbance from myself.

At the end of April 1998 while during
my usual water change in their tank I moved the Java Moss and
noticed a young catfish darting away towards the back of the
tank, it had to be a young nattereri as this was a species
tank.

My five original nattereri consisted of four males and
one large female which was almost twice the size of the males.
I decided to try and get them to spawn again. Sunday: 25% water
change was carried out using water straight from the household
water supply pH 8.3. Prior to this the tank conditions were
pH 6.0 and Temperature 73F/23C. After the 7-gallon water change
I knew this would make quite a change to the water parameters
but I decided to go ahead anyway.

This totalled 40 eggs, which were placed in a small show tank
with water from the spawning tank to which I added one drop
of Methylene Blue. An airline was placed in the small tank to
keep the water circulating. Any infertile eggs were removed.
The fertile eggs were tan coloured and got darker until on the
third day they hatched. A further two days and they were free
swimming, approximately 1/8th on an inch in overall
length.

The following weekend I repeated the same procedure again with
the water change and on day three I collected 24 eggs. By now
my compliment of nattereri young numbered 43 - ½ inch
fry. During these two "controlled" spawnings 64 eggs were collected
of which 12 were infertile and 12 fry died giving me 43 fry.
There were also some fry darting about the parent’s tank.
It caused me a bit of concern as to why I lost 12 of the fry
as they were being fed with micro worm, newly hatched brine
shrimp and plenty water changes using water from the parents
tank.

I soon realised that the tank holding the fry was sited 3 feet
higher than the parent’s tank and was at least 5 degrees
hotter. I then moved the fry tanks to a colder part of the fish
house and since doing that there have been no further losses.

At the age of six week’s the fry were moved from their
[ 12"x 10"x 8"] rearing tank to a 18’’x12’’x12’’
growing on tank and they will moved on to a larger tank as they
grow.

One month after the first spawning I repeated the whole procedure
yet again. Day 3:I spent
quite sometime removing 97 eggs from the Java Moss. Tank conditions
at time of removal pH 6.5 temperature 71F/21C.Conclusion:Never give
up trying to breed Corydoras Catfish as they will surprise
you all the time. This article
was written for publication in The Paisley & District Aquarist
Society’s Newsletter and the Northern Area Catfish Group
(now Catfish
Study Group) Newsletter, and ScotCat. if they wish
to use it.